This invention pertains to reed-type game calls used by hunters for attracting fowl or mammals.
Game calls have been used for many years by hunters trying to attract game within the range of accuracy of their weapons. Duck and goose calls have been popular for a long time. More recently, deer calls have become popular. Various advances have been made over time to make the calls imitate the actual sounds of the game more closely.
In the case of goose calls and deer calls, there has been an obstacle to duplicating the actual animal sounds, primarily because a human blowing into a call can only make so many sounds in a certain period of time (frequency of sounds). Geese and deer are known to make a higher frequency of sounds than is possible by a human blowing into a call. A hunter trying to imitate the sound of a flock of geese would find it impossible with the existing technology, because he could not blow into the call rapidly enough to make all the different sounds. A hunter trying to imitate the sound of a deer that is hyperventilating could not blow into the call rapidly enough to make the sounds corresponding to the rapid breathing in and out.
The reed calls of the prior art do not permit a hunter to make sounds any faster than he can blow into the call and, therefore, have limited the ability of hunters to imitate the animal sounds. The present invention overcomes this problem of the prior art by making a game call that produces lifelike sounds by blowing into and sucking on the same end of the call.
The present invention permits a hunter to make one type of sound when blowing out through the call, the same or a different sound when sucking in, and to repeat the sounds in rapid succession.
This permits a caller to sound like a whole flock of geese with rapid-fire, varied sounds. It also permits him to sound like a hyperventilating deer.
Thus, the present invention permits a game caller to much more closely imitate the real calls of geese and deer.
Many obstacles had to be overcome by the present inventors in order to make the present invention. First, they had to think of the concept of making a two-directional call to solve the basic problem. But then they encountered many problems which prevented the two-directional call from making authentic sounds. One of the problems is that a human cannot easily create as great a pressure difference sucking or inhaling on a game call as he can blowing out. Therefore, he cannot pull in the big puffs of air needed to make the reed vibrate properly. He also has far less control in sucking than in blowing and so, even if something close to an authentic sound could be made, he cannot vary the sounds as needed to get the variety of sounds needed for an authentic call. The lower air flow rate in sucking also means that the volume of the sound may not be loud enough to attract the game. In addition, when sucking on a call, the air flow stops at the caller's mouth and cannot be extended or varied in length as with blowing out on a call.
The present inventors worked for about ten years to develop a call that would sound authentic when sucking on the mouthpiece. Initially, sucking on the far end of traditional calls produced either no sound at all or nonsensical sounds that did not begin to imitate the game they were able to call when blowing on the mouthpiece. The inventors found that the reed on the far end that made the sound upon inhaling had to be thin enough that the caller could make it vibrate easily. The reed on that end also had to be relatively short, preferably shorter than the front end of the reed. The trough had to be relatively short to permit air to flow along it in two directions at rapid intervals. Many attempts and adjustments were made to finally obtain a functional call. The final result is a call that permits a caller to make sounds in rapid sequence to more closely imitate the natural sounds than was possible before the present invention.